Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ… So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith.
Galatians 6:2, 10

“You took away all my support– my people.”

Walter had said this to me many times before, but this time, there was real desperation in his voice as he spoke through tears.¹ Walter had been living in the bridge housing program I ran for houseless individuals for nearly two months. He had seen a number of other program participants come and go– many having moved into their own house or apartment for the first time. Prior to coming to the program, Walter was a central figure in his encampment– a resource man and enforcer of sorts for his small community. He and several others were referred to my agency when municipal authorities forcefully removed them from the public land they occupied in an exercise commonly known as a “camp sweep.” Much is lost in a sweep: possessions, vital documents, routines– but perhaps the most disorienting is the loss of community and sense of belonging that is forged between campmates that struggle to live together outside. It was this latter loss that Walter was mourning as he expressed his despair.

“I’m lost,” he said between sniffles and furrowed eyebrows.

The reality of his situation began to hit him. It was going to take a long time for Walter to acquire his own place. He had been homeless for a long time, and it showed. Years of rough sleeping, harassment, physical fights, traumatic injury, and drug use had all aged his body decades beyond his natural years. With those years came barriers to housing that most landlords find it hard to overlook– some legal, some behavioral, all of them acquired through circumstance, and none of them did justice to the complex man that wept before me. But it wasn’t the fact that getting permanent housing was going to be hard that had Walter feeling so down. The lost feeling growing inside him came from the fact that if and when he finally found a place to live from the very narrow options afforded him by virtue of his housing voucher, he would be alone. The programs built to serve him and others in his situation expected near immediate independence– or rather, they imposed isolation. Walter had grown accustomed to living in community. What’s more, the kind of community he had built for himself over the years, despite its various dysfunctional and abusive aspects, was his source of profound, nonjudgmental support. In Walter’s words, “We know we’re messed up. We just don’t pretend we’re not, like the rest of society does.” Walter’s community gave him a sense of belonging, a sense of family, and that was slowly being taken away and replaced with a peculiar form of American atomism. It was no surprise that he often contemplated whether or not he should abandon the whole charade and return to his tent, where at least he could live among like-minded friends.

Walter highlights for me a contradiction at the root of much the work that I’ve spent the last decade of my life doing. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to get houseless people housed, only to deliver housing options stripped of the very things that kept those people afloat. This is a structural problem more than it is a flaw with the way any individual worker approaches the problem of homelessness. The vast majority of people I know that work in this field are phenomenal human beings with hearts as big as saints’. I can’t get into the details of all the structural problems relating to the cause of homelessness and the current approaches to its solution. Suffice it to say I think it is a good and necessary thing that public programs exist to assist those experiencing homelessness. Nevertheless, I’ve come to recognize the fact that of the various causes of homelessness, the material is but one.

When people talk about homelessness, they sometimes speak as if it could just happen to anyone indiscriminately. This is usually said in an attempt to encourage sympathy or solidarity. In some limited sense, this is true. The pandemic years certainly demonstrated that people can “do all the right things” and still find themselves on the streets due to serious economic loss. Some people, however, owing to certain privilege and wealth, are all but entirely insulated from ever experiencing anything like what Walter has, despite the fact that they share in the same humanity. Others, like myself, are protected from homelessness by non-economic factors. For instance, if I suddenly lost my job and was unable to pay for my housing, I would not immediately become street homeless. I have an entire contact list full of people that would willingly take me and my family in if I asked. That’s to say nothing of the family support that would be there for me at the slightest indication of need.

This fact has been especially evident to me as we prepare to leave for seminary. My family and I moved out of our house about a month ago. My brother and some housemates are renting our house during our seminary years, so we moved in with my sister, her husband and their two kids. Accommodating and incorporating an entire family into your home is not without challenges; still, my sister’s family has been so gracious. It’s easy to take these sorts of supports for granted when they’re so commonplace. Opening the boundaries of our home is something of a norm in my family. I have memories from my childhood of my parents taking in people that weren’t members of our nuclear family for seasons of time. When my sister and her family first moved to Kansas City, they lived with us in our house for several months, and my brother has lived with us for the past year. In fact, of the 12 years that Christina and I have been married, we have had adult roommates for 10 of those years. When you choose to live with others, in some sense, you incorporate them into your family. Profound things can happen when you share meals and dishes and parenting with others under the same roof. You learn to forgive differently than you would in separate houses and you learn to bear each other’s burdens.

As my family is in this transitional period, I am acutely aware of the burdens that others are bearing with me. My family is carrying us through the season in-between homes. Some people are supporting us financially. Others have been deep spiritual support for us over the three years that we’ve discerned the choice to go to seminary. Still others are bearing with the fact that our departure is painful, whether because of the strain on relationships, or because they don’t endorse the choice to enter Church ministry. Whatever the case, I recognize the fact that none of this is remotely possible without the love and support of others.

Reflecting on all of this, I can’t help but sense the deep injustice of it all when I remember someone like Walter. The fact that Walter has spent years living outside means that something has gone profoundly wrong, not only in terms of the material resources available to him, but perhaps especially as it pertains to his human relationships. Clearly, some relational crisis has occurred if there is no one out there that would take in this man out of love before duty or professional obligation. And yet, the only help available to address his experience of homeless is four walls and a roof, perhaps at the expense of his human support. Which is not to say that safe shelter and housing are trivial things. I agree with the housing-first adage that the solution to homelessness is housing. But perhaps not only housing.

When I look at the disparity between my life and Walter’s, I often think, “Where are his people?” Where are the people that will support him, fight with him and for him, do dishes with him and take him to Church? In some sense, he was taken from his people. Or if they weren’t “his people,” they were the people that could stand him and could make homeless life bearable. But where are the people that will make housed life bearable? Where are the people that will continue to bear Walter’s burdens?

Housing programs are really good at providing what is lacking from material resources– however limited. But grant-funded programs aren’t really designed to bear the burdens of someone like Walter in the way that my family has borne mine. I suppose this is part of why I am going to seminary– because I want to do the work of the Church that bears burdens in ways that housing programs can’t.

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1. “Walter” is based on numerous conversations I’ve had with folks experiencing homelessness over the years. The name and details have been changed, synthesized or altered to preserve anonymity. ↩︎